Abortion is immoral. Period.

As far as I'm concerned the only person who has the right to decide about having or not having an abortion, is the woman.

You persist in rewording stuff here to suit your rather weak arguments. I never made any assertions about the supposed " similarities between underage sex and abortion". That is your construct and you can deal with it.

The discussion you jumped into was about the principle of a woman's supposed "sovereignty" over her body, as a basis for a legal principle requiring unlimited access to abortion. I merely pointed out existing inconsistencies with that supposed legal principle in existing law.

Until you return to the subject I will ignore your posts on this matter.

Well, I'll be the first to argue for your right to abort the discussion on your own terms.

You appear to be very fond of the effort to put words and ideas in to the mouths of others to suit your "arguments". This has merely been an exercise in your successive efforts in this presumptuous technique. No discussion occurred at all.

Is this a special case? Or are you claiming that society never has a right to legislate moral issues that involve personal decisions?

Is the only person who has the right decide whether to have an assault weapon a gun owner.

Riiiight . . .

No. You really did say: "I am comparing both in the context of a supposed absolute sovereignty of a woman over her body."

And then I asked you to explain the similarities between the two scenarios as they relate to a woman's sovereign right to control her own bodily processes. You then opted to not explain.

Yes. The thought being a minor does not able the ability to contract therefore cannot make sound legal decisions, whereas a person over the age of 18 can.

But I think you're comparing apples to oranges with your example. If a girl of 16 dates a guy in high school who just happens to be 18 at the time, most people would not consider that illegal, although it could be a crime depending on the age of consent in that State.

max, this is about the woman, in fact all women, having the right to decide about their body. This is about them choosing to proceed with creating a living individual or deciding against it. It is no business of the government, apart from legislating about covering the cost of either the abortion or the costs towards raising the child, including a college education and including any costs which would be incurred due to any medical condition which requires extra care.

Further, trying to equate this with assault weapon legislation, is ludicrous...even for you.

I only made one post on this particular thread back when this thread first started.
I haven't made any further post on this thread until now.
But, I have been reading many of the back and forth post of everyone else since then.
I am not sure if anyone had addressed this issue.
It seems to be mostly men passing or trying to pass these laws.

Do you think women should have much more input and say so of laws that affect their bodies?

That line of reasoning only works if you ignore the fact that there is another life involved. Abortion ends a life. The question is at what point we consider this life to be a human being.

If you believed that abortion involved the death of a human being, would you still support it? Many people believe exactly that.

Our eletected officials pass the laws. I don't know of any other way to do it. There are in fact some women legislators in both the national and state level who want to restrict abortion. So what?

This is a silly point you are making... It is a fact that everyone in favor of abortion rights has already been born.

It's a life process. It's potential life. It's a potential life that is completely dependent on the woman's body. If the woman wants to terminate that potential life, I believe that is their right to do so.

If legislation were passed banning abortion at the point where a fetus can be born and live outside the mother (viability) (there may be cases where I think abortion maybe should be allowed even after that point, but I can't think of any), I think I'd be ok with that. Abortions this late in a pregnancy are extremely rare and uncommon enough that if legislation wasn't passed to outlaw this, it's not something that I'm overly concerned with.

Obviously.

For starters, the elected officials can actually listen to the opinion of women when it comes to laws about their bodies. Especially if the vast majority of women share a particular opinion regarding laws about their bodies. Most important take their opinions seriously when passing or trying to pass laws about their bodies.

I'm sure there are. To answer your question "So What", I suspect that the men make up an enormously high percentage of the legislators who want to restrict abortion.

I am merely stating that the women population should have more say and input about laws that affect their bodies. Your indifference and cavalier attitude of calling this a silly point can be seen as offensive. Since I am a man, I will let the women speak to that.

Yes. And there are socially conservative men who continue relentlessly to try to pass new laws of restriction.

The Hemlock Society believes in assisted End Of Life. It's gaining popularity as a way to end suffering in late stages of cancer. The question now becomes, at what point can we choose our moment to die? Simple answer: Any date chosen.

1. I suspect that most members of Congress who are supporting restrictions on abortion have the support of the majority of women in their district. This is certainly true in State legislatures, a majority of women in Texas, Kansas and Missouri want abortion banned.

2. You seem to go out of your way to ignore the existence socially conservative women. They are solidly pro-life (just like socially conservative men). Could you at least admit they exist? (I would like you to admit they have the right to vote too... but that might be pushing it).

3. According to Pew research, 59% of women nationally say that abortion should be legal in "all or most cases". 38% of women say that abortion should be illegal in "all or most cases". I don't think 59-38 counts as a "vast majority" of women. (http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/).

4. Your animosity to "socially conservative men" is part of the problem. You are lumping a large group of people together under one label, and then you are refusing to accept their humanity or their value as part of our diverse democracy.

5. There is a large number of people who oppose abortion because they believe it ends a human life. These include liberal groups who support immigrants and work for peace.

Demonizing or ignoring them is neither fair, nor rational.

6. The Democratic party will need the vote of people who oppose abortion in 2020. The Democrats want the votes of people who support social justice, immigration, health care... attacking people because of their lack of purity on this issue is political idiocy.

This is a completely different issue... however I disagree with you.

It is the voice of activists with physical disabilities that changed my mind on this, readily available suicide is bad for a compassionate, inclusive society. I would like physician assisted suicide available under a doctor's care for people with terminal illnesses. I want it very well regulated to avoid the loss of life of people with depression who can be helped.

We can start a different thread. The lives that are taken in an abortion are not able to express their own wishes.

And those people are free to believe what they want, and to act on their beliefs . . . as far as their own bodies are concerned.

Actually, their insistence on forcing others to adhere to their beliefs is neither fair nor rational.

Maybe. Maybe not. I am not sure if that is actually true. I will just have to take your word.

I never said that socially conservative women didn't existed. I never said that pro-life women didn't exist. But, on the other hand, you seem to go out of your way to ignore and disregard the opinion of the vast majority of all women. Of course the 38% pro-life women have the right to vote. I just don't want you to be ignoring the vast majority 59% pro-choice women.

Yes 59% can count as the "vast majority"
It's all relative.

I think there is a significant difference between what people think is moral and what should be legal. People have all sorts of different ideas about the value of life and none of these ideas are inherently wrong. Some people believe you shouldn't kill any animals. Some believe that it's ok to kill some animals, but not mammals. Some believe that it's ok to kill some mammals like cows but dogs and cat are special. Some believe that contraception is morally wrong. Some believe that abortion is morally wrong. There are some that believe that killing people is not morally wrong if it fits their political agenda or sense of justice. All of us are highly committed to our morals, but that doesn't make them immutable facts.

In terms of human life, just about every society defines human life at birth. Individuals often define it otherwise and Max makes some good points about how people perceive their pregnancies, but it's pretty hard to say that any society values the unborn the way it values a live birth. No census counts the number of expected children. No life insurance policies pay out for miscarriages (which doesn't make them any less tragic for the parents involved). No firefighter would charge into a burning building to save fertilized human eggs in a freezer or allow a child to die to save a rack of embryos. Nationality is determined at birth, not at conception. When a child is born, a certificate of "live birth" is issued. Until then, there is legally no person. Obviously people have differences of opinion about this, but societies in general do not.

People have lots of disagreements about morality, but in general, in the US, one person's morality does not limit other person's rights. You don't believe in divorce, great, don't get a divorce, but don't dictate to others how to be married (or not to be). That's what the Constitution tries to balance, the rights of the individual against the wishes (tyranny) of the majority. Of course, historically the majority has successfully enforced its version of morality on the minority. There are localized majorities that want to ban abortion, even if that opinion is a minority across the country.

I can't see how some people's view on abortion trump the rights of the woman. I understand their argument, but I disagree the same way I disagree with the Catholic Church around contraception. If you argue that a fetus is a person, then abortion under any circumstance is murder including is case of the imminent death of the mother. Most reasonable adults would reject that statement. A fetus generates a lot of emotion, but birth is what creates a person.

I don't believe this is true at all. This seems like another example of convenient historical revisionism.

It is clear that the idea that a soul exists in a baby at, or soon after, conception is present in both Middle Eastern and East Asian traditional cultures. Google points out that traditional African cultures (e.g. the Igdbo in Nigeria) believed that human life begins at conception.

Actually, it proves to be more difficult to find examples of traditional cultures that believe that human life doesn't start until birth.

Do you have an example of a pre-colonial culture that believed this?